Marvellous - but now and then overwrought. That’s true, even by Stokowski’s
standards of epic Technicolor, in the Ouverture of the Orchestral Suite in B
minor, where the eponymous Symphony Orchestra’s basses resound with the
kind of Stygian depth that has one reaching for metaphor. In fact I found the
whole performance a bit bewildering and I speak as a Stoky man through and through.
The Polonaise-Double is delineated but heavy, heavy, heavy. Julius Baker manages
to play with adept musicality but even he can do nothing to stop phrase endings
derailing. I wouldn’t therefore say that it’s a traincrash of a recording
but I will say that it’s no great surprise that it’s something of
a rare bird in the Stokowski catalogue, not having been reissued since its first
appearance on LM1176.
Jesus bleibet meine Freude and Sheep may safely graze were both
recorded at the same session in August 1950 and are both richly and warmly cantilevered.
The earliest recording in the compilation is the inscription of the Shepherds'
Music from the Christmas Oratorio (Philadelphia, 1929), which is splendidly characterised.
Launching forward over a decade we find a slightly unusual Hollywood session
in 1941 with the All-American Youth Orchestra. The piece was the Preludio from
the E major Violin Sonata and the strings are on suitably energised form. Naturally
there is a performance of the ‘Air on a G String’ and the luxurious,
upholstered Philadelphians dig into it without maidenly blush whereas two years
earlier they’d ripped into the Fantasia and Fugue in G minor; this is the
most glorious sound imaginable.

And there is the nobility of Mein Jesu! was vor Seelenweh to admire. Es
ist vollbracht! from the St John Passion is rather compromised by over-luscious
portamenti - another steroid performance - but the final Jesus Christus Gottes
Sohn makes amends. It’s famously terrific.

The transfers are first class, and the notes are helpful. The performances remain
examples of Stokowskized wizardry - and sometimes less than wizardry - and intensity.